As opposed to open surgery in which a surgeon cuts a relatively large incision in the skin of a patient for accessing internal organs, minimally invasive surgical procedures are performed by making relatively small incisions and then inserting tools through the incisions to access the organs. Minimally invasive surgery usually results in shorter hospitalization times, reduced therapy requirements, less pain, less scarring, and fewer complications.
Although minimally invasive surgical procedures involving small incisions include many advantages over open surgery, minimally invasive surgery can still create challenges to a surgeon. For example, the surgeon must typically rely on a miniature camera introduced through an incision to view the patient's internal organs and see how the movement and operation of the tools affects the organs. The camera transmits images to a visual display, allowing the surgeon to see the internal organs and tissues and to see the effect of other minimally invasive tools on the organs and tissues. In this way, the surgeon is able to perform laparoscopic surgery, dissection, cauterization, endoscopy, telesurgery, and the like. Compared to open surgery, however, minimally invasive surgery can present limitations regarding the surgeon's ability to see and feel the patient's organs and tissues. In laparoscopic surgery, surgeons have limited capacity to palpate or manipulate tissues to enable procedural progress. In some cases, this can result in converting the procedure from closed to open to facilitate identification of various structures or management of operative complications.
Many existing laparascopic hand tools make extensive use of complex mechanical assemblies to indicate the status of the tool for correct use and reinforce the importance of correct use to the operator. However, such mechanical assemblies may be complex, bulky, and/or costly to incorporate into the surgical tools. It is an object hereof to provide effective haptic effects to a user operated surgical tool via a programmable haptic device that allows generation and delivery of a force feedback effect to a user.